Besides the amazing opportunity to "see" the ALA Youth Media Awards streaming live on Monday morning, I was particularly excited to learn something important too. Sibert is pronounced with a long i sound - not an e sound as I had been doing for the past two weeks.

And what a way to start off Monday! Of course I was thrilled to hear the winners of the Newbery, Caldecott and Geisel Medals announced, but perhaps even more special was to hear about some of the awards with which I was less familiar. Congratulations to all the amazing authors and illustrators for their important work.

And the winner is . . .

Because we were attempting to finish our Mock Caldecott reading, as well as learn about some possible nominees for the Sibert Award, my students did not get to spend as much time interacting with the texts as some of the other smackdown participants did. But all six of my library classes that had third or fourth graders were able to look at and read most of each of the books I was able to find. Click here for my post about the awards and books on which we focused.
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For the #SibertSmackdown:

My students chose Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson's Super-soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton and illustrated by Don Tate. Not too far behind were Animals by the Numbers, Coyote Moon, and Giant Squid.

We had a lot of fun sharing thoughts with students from around the U.S. and the world, using Flipgrid and Padlet. Check out Michele Knott's post about her students' ideas about these books. Listen to students from Erika Victor's class in Malaysia on the Flipgrid too!

For the Mock Caldecott:

The students overwhelming selected Are We There Yet? by Dan Santat. I think it was the dinosaurs that hooked them!

We are ready! My library classes have been reading and thinking critically about many different pictures books and this week, we join some very special committees as we select our own winners. It is not going to be easy. Have you read these books yet? Many of us are agonizing over the decision. And this is just for the few books we read together. We cannot even imagine what each committee has gone through! Monday, January 23, the ALA Youth Media awards will be announced. Woo hoo!

Our Mock Caldecott nominees

#Sibert Smackdown

There's still time to share student voices! Read Melissa Stewart's blog post to get title ideas. Then check out our #sibertsmackdown page and the Flipgrid (on the Flipgrid app use code: 30fa9c) on which your students can record which Mock Sibert title they chose and why. We can't wait to hear what you think!